Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/379

 EPAMINONDAS 357 no othev living man could they obtain tlnj same union of the sol- dier, the general, the orator, and the patriot. Looking through all Grecian history, it is only in Perikles that we find the like many-sided excellence ; for though much inferior to Epaminou- das as a general, Perikles must be held superior to him as a states- man. But it is alike true of both, and the remark tends much to illustrate the sources of Grecian excellence, that neither sprang exclusively from the school of practice and experience. They both brought to that school minds exercised in the conver- sation of the most instructed philosophers and sophists accessible to them, trained to varied intellectual combinations and to a larger range of subjects than those that came before the public assembly, familiarized with reasonings which the scrupulous piety of Nikias forswore, and which the devoted military patriot- ism of Pelopidas disdained. On one point, as I have already noticed, the policy recom- mended by Epaminondas to his countrymen appears of question- able wisdom, his advice to compete with Athens for transma- rine and naval power. One cannot recognize in this advice the same accurate estimate of permanent causes, the same long- sighted view, of the conditions of strength to Thebes and of weak- ness to her enemies, which dictated the foundation of Messene and Megalopolis. These two towns, when once founded, took such firm root, that Sparta could not persuade even her own allies to aid in effacing them ; a clear proof of the sound reasoning on which their founder had proceeded. What Epaminondas would have done, whether he would have followed out maxims equally prudent and penetrating, if he had survived the victory of Man- tinea, is a point which we cannot pretend to divine. He would have found himself then on a pinnacle of glory, and invested with a plenitude of power, such as no Greek ever held without abus- ing. But all that we know of Epaminondas justifies the conjec- ture that he would have been found equal, more than any other Greek, even to this great trial ; and that his untimely death shut him out from a future not less honorable to himself, than beneficial to Thebes and to Greece generally. Of the private life and habits of Epaminondas we know scarcely anything. We are told that he never married ; and we find brief allusions, without any detail?, to attachments in which he is said